The Once and Future King
by theonceandfutureprat
Summary: Merlin lives on, immortal and eternally young, long after Camlann.  Merlin makes it his task to seek out those with natural magic, and teach them control like he should have taught Morgana more than a thousand years ago.  Maybe slash but not yet.


**There's a massive unwritten story here, which includes the return of Arthur, epic adventures, lots of OCs and probably some awkwardly written Merthur.  
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_Rachel's idea mostly, but I helped and inspired it. :)_

**It _was_ a drabble before Hannah interfered. Now the story's got _really_ big, and I'm not sure if I could ever finish it. **Anyone interested in more?****

"So," Merlin concluded, "You can use the mirrors to contact someone, wherever they are. They have a great advantage over modern technology, because you only need to feel the earth: you don't need a signal. "

"Or credit, or to charge a battery," grinned Nyneve, already thinking of the possibilities.

"Exactly," replied Merlin. "But you must be careful to use them secretly. If you're not available, you just need to pinch the edge of the mirror with your thumb, and I'll know that you'll contact me later."

Nyneve sighed, exasperated with the fact that so many people lived in complete ignorance about the existence of magic, and with Merlin's determination to keep things that way. "Don't you ever get tired of the secrecy?"

Merlin smiled then, the lonely bittersweet smile that Nyneve had learnt to mean he was thinking of his time in Camelot, of Arthur. "I think magic and secrecy go hand in hand, Nyneve." The same kind of non-answer Nyneve had learned to expect of Merlin, whenever she asked something too personal.

"Surely back in your time – before phones and everything – wouldn't this kind of instant communication have been a huge advantage? I mean, battles and stuff. If the other side has to use messengers, and you have this – you'd win every time, wouldn't you?"

Merlin shook his head. "It's not quite that simple. Besides, the other side very often had this kind of power too. Certainly Arthur seemed to have a fair few magical enemies who still bore grudges from his youth."

"Because of the purge?"

"Well, he was a baby when that happened, but yes, some still hated him for his father's deeds. But also when he was a young man, before I revealed my magic to him, and when he still believed the same as his father."

"Why? What did he do?"

Merlin shook his head briskly, as though trying to clear his thoughts. "I'm supposed to be teaching you magic, not history. Now, I'll go into the other room, and you stay here. Try to contact me."

Merlin left, and Nyneve noticed his hand shaking as he closed the door behind himself. She wondered what had happened, when Merlin and Arthur were young. Merlin always spoke of Arthur as a hero, a golden king who ruled Camelot well. She'd heard fond complaints of his rudeness, but never anything that made her doubt that Arthur was always a good man.

Then again, he had died over a thousand years ago; 'never speak ill of the dead' and all that. And Nyneve could tell that Merlin missed Arthur terribly; Arthur was the most important person to Merlin, even in his absence. Merlin had Nyneve, of course, and his other students, and the dozen or so of them made a happy group down at the pub. Her fellow students felt almost like a second family to Nyneve. She supposed that, for Merlin, it was all he had now.

But he never let them close, and Nyneve thought she knew why. Merlin was Emrys, the immortal warlock, and they were all drawing closer to their deaths. They would all leave him, soon enough, and he could not have the strength in his heart to remember them all, as he remembered Arthur. Nobody could mourn that much and stay sane, and Nyneve suspected that Merlin had made the decision not to get too involved a long time ago.

"_Scéawere: ásprice Merlin_." Nyneve spoke the words of the Old Religion, and Merlin's smiling face appeared in the mirror.

"Snow White is the fairest of them all," Merlin joked, rolling his eyes back into his head and speaking in an unusually deep voice. Nyneve laughed, and soon Merlin's face became more serious. "Very few students have got that on the first attempt. Well done, Nyneve; I'm impressed."

Nyneve smiled at the praise, and soon Merlin was back in the room. "Is that the time?" he muttered, looking at his watch in confusion. "You'd better be off, I've got another patient in ten minutes."

"Anyone magical? I could wait; it'd be nice to learn together."

"Not sure; but this is his first appointment so you definitely have to go. He's reporting hallucinations and strange dreams, though, so the odds are good. Could easily be schizophrenia though, or any number of other things, so don't get your hopes up."

Nyneve nodded, smiling at Merlin's attempt to protect her emotions. He knew how desperate she was to find as many others with magic as she could: people who had been confused like her, and weren't so timeless and wise like Merlin.

"Oh, and before you go, here's my personal email," Merlin handed over a scrap of paper with an email address scrawled on it in pen. "This is the last session your parents have paid for, so I'm going to file a report saying that the hallucinations have stopped and that you're recovering from depression. Make sure you keep the pendant on when you can't be disturbed: out in public -"

"Or cooking -"

"Or watching Doctor Who," they concluded in unison.

"Will do," Nyneve smiled.

And she would: she remembered the last poorly timed vision she had, before Merlin gave her the pendant. She had been crossing the road on her way home from a bad day at school, when her mind was overwhelmed by a series of images of herself: laughing, sleeping, eating breakfast. She had stopped in her tracks, and but for a quick-thinking bus driver, would have been killed.

Everybody watching had assumed it was a suicide attempt, and Nyneve's denial of this only made them think she was delusional. She'd been forced into therapy, and had gone through several psychiatrists in quick succession – even managing to accidentally burn down someone's office using magic.

Then she met Merlin, who had the face of a young man and eyes which were much, much older. He explained to her that her visions were of the future, and she had magical gifts. She thought he was the crazy one at first, but it made sense. Merlin had given her a pendant to suppress the visions during the day, and in their sessions he had taught her to control her magic. And he liked her; she could tell. She was something special to him, and that was a feeling she wanted to hold on to.

"Will you keep teaching me?" Nyneve asked. "I feel like there's so much more to learn."

"There's always more to learn," Merlin agreed. "Email me the times you can make it; you can come round to my flat. That reminds me; we should get you all in at once. Little competition maybe."

"I'll make a Facebook group," Nyneve suggested.

"Hang on a minute," Merlin protested. "I've only just about got used to email, I think social networking is pushing it. I'm still impressed by telegraphs, girl! Anyway, you'd better get out, I think I see the next guy waiting outside."

Nyneve smiled at her teacher and left, her mind already buzzing with plans and possibilities for the future. She spared a smile for the man in the waiting room too: maybe two years older than herself, blond, expensive suit. She was hoping that he did have magic, because she certainly wanted to see him again. But then he scowled at her, in a way that made clear that he had registered her friendly gesture, and was deliberately rejecting it. Probably a psycho, certainly a prat, she thought to herself, and stepped into the lift, not giving him another thought.


End file.
